Professional Standards and Academic Values in 21 st Century Higher Education

1. Professional Standards and Academic Values in 21st Century Higher Education Rob Cuthbert Professor of Higher Education ManagementUniversity of the West of England, Bristol

2. Some troublesome questions • Why do most people say teaching is important, but think that most other people think research is more important? • Why is it hard to find effective ways to reward people for good teaching? • Why do some people who really want to be good teachers resist help from educational developers?

3. Some troublesome questions • Why is research funded at less than full economic cost thought of as ‘income generation’, while teaching that earns more than its full economic cost is not? • Why is it hard to find evidence that teaching and research must go together to ensure the best HE? • And why, if we believe teaching and research must go together, do we allow hundreds of thousands of students to do HE courses in places where there is little or no research?

4. Troublesome questions • Why do most people say teaching is important, but think that most other people think research is more important? Because we live with reward systems which differentiate between the two instead of rewarding a balanced contribution to academic practice • Why is it so hard to find effective ways to reward people for good teaching? Because our reward mechanisms are too far removed from the department, the only place where tacit knowledge about teaching performance can be understood and applied.

5. Troublesome questions • Why do some people who really want to be good teachers resist help from educational developers? Because some educational development is framed in an alienating structure disconnected from the realities of departmental academic practice. • Why is research funded at less than full economic cost thought of as ‘income generation’, while teaching that earns more than its full economic cost is not? Because preserving the R-T-S nexus as the gold standard incites most institutions to do more research, inhibiting broader ideas about the kind of academic practice needed in different contexts.

6. Troublesome questions • Why is it so hard to find evidence that teaching and research must go together to ensure the best higher education? Because contexts vary, and academic practice varies accordingly; there is no one best way. • And why, if we believe teaching and research must go together, do we allow hundreds of thousands of students to do HE courses in places where there is little or no research? Because we know that those students do get a good educational experience, but we cannot square that knowledge with our inadequate conception of a good higher education.

7. “The series of oppositions that have grown up between teaching and research, and the increased funding gaps between research rich and poor institutions, have led to the association of mass education and widening participation with teaching-only, vocational, employability and lesser-status institutions, whereas research has become associated with high status, the imperative towards economic competitiveness, and the idea of ‘world-class universities. … The invention of academic development as being primarily concerned with improving and valorising teaching only makes sense when viewed in this relatively recent context.”’ Clegg (2009 p407).

8. Questions for discussion 1 • How can we ensure that our efforts to improve teaching and learning stay close to the subjects and professions which academics value most? • In trying to make teaching and learning better, which levels of intervention – system, institution, faculty, department, course, lecturer, student – are most important? • How can we support and promote scholarship to underpin excellent teaching?

9. Questions for discussion 2 • What are the academic purposes associated with institutions within DCAD? • What range of academic contexts is represented within DCAD: what kind of academic practice (mix of T, R etc) is characteristic of those contexts? • How has academic practice evolved, and how is it evolving, to support the achievement of different academic purposes? • What kind of academic freedom do we need for excellent teaching in these contexts, for these purposes?

10. References • Boyer E (1997) Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate Princeton NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching • Clegg, Sue (2009) ‘Forms of knowing and academic development practice’ Studies in Higher Education 34:4 403-416 • Cuthbert R (2009) ‘Can academic practice make perfect?’ Educational Developments 10:1 February 2009 1-5 • Gosling D and A Hannan (2006) ‘Theoretical underpinnings: an analysis of Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs)’ in Rust C (ed) (2006) Improving student learning through teaching Oxford: OCSLD, Oxford Brookes University • Oakleigh Consulting Ltd (2008) Interim Evaluation of the Higher Education Academy • A report to HEFCE, HEFCW, SFC, DELNI, GuildHE and UUK by Oakleigh Consulting Ltd Bristol: HEFCE January 2008 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rdreports/2008/rd02_08/rd02_08.doc

11. Saunders M et al (2008) 2005-2010 Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning programme Formative evaluation report to HEFCE by the Centre for Study in Education and Training/Institution of Educational Technology: Professor Murray Saunders, Dr Joan Machell, Dr Sadie Williams, Dave Allaway, Abby Spencer, Dr Paul Ashwin, Professor Paul Trowler, Dr Joelle Fanghanel, Dr LesleyAnn Morgan and Dr Anne McKee. September 2008 Bristol: HEFCE http://www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/tinits/cetl/evaluation/ • Summative evaluation of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF) (2005) A report to HEFCE by The Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting November 2005 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Pubs/rdreports/2005/rd23_05/rd23_05.doc • Trow M (1974) ‘Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education’ in OECD Policies for higher education Paris: OECD General Report, Conference on Future Structures of Post-Secondary Education 1973 • Trowler, Paul, Joelle Fanghanel and Terry Wareham (2005) ‘Freeing the chi of change: the Higher Education Academy and enhancing teaching and learning in higher education’ Studies in Higher Education 30:4 427-444